I went back to that Laetiporus Sulphureous, armed with a kitchen knife, and took home as much as I could carry. That’s a lot of chicken of the woods, all in my thermal box.
This evening preparing it was work. The constant rich woody smell of it, water water everywhere and I’m cutting and sorting and weighing and testing consistency. I could afford to be choosy. Out of about ten kilo of the stuff I ended up with four that I wanted, packed into 500g freezer bags and popped into the great big chest freezer in the utility room that I didn’t know about until this morning.
Any friends wanting the fruit of my labours, I’m sure I could gift you a bag. Apparently it freezes well and defrosts as fresh as when it was frozen so there’s 8 bags of tasty foraged and carefully cleaned wild mushroom coming home in my thermal box from east Yorkshire on Tuesday. I’ve been looking for the damn things for years. Then loads of them showed up when I wasn’t looking. Gorgeous weird thing, and by the time I was done cleaning it I didn’t feel inclined to put any in my mouth so I’ve kept a little bit back in the fridge and I’ll get stuck in in the morning. I’ll have to. Just gonna sautee some with garlic and butter and a shallot for breakfast. Rich breakfast but I’m in Yorkshire. Kinda on my holidays. I can do what I want.
It’s glorious here. We go for evening walks to the river, there was a deer in the garden this morning when we woke up. Lou threw open the curtain and exclaimed. We’ve been feeding the wild birds poppadoms. This evening I tried to carry a Tesco bag full of chicken of the woods shavings to the nearest telegraph pole, but the bottom came out on the road. It looks like papaya. The texture is similar too, the good bits a bit squishy but hanging together, going towards slime at the tips and towards wood at the base. The bits I’ve kept are largely middle ground. I might have made a mushroom stock but I’m not at home and there’s enough to carry with the mushrooms themselves.
In bed again now in the peace having had a lovely relaxing evening interlaced with a panic about something at home that thankfully could have been a total disaster but for Brian. Once again that man warrants his Superman T-shirt. I think I’ll have to get him a new one.
AlBarclay 